Monday, October 11th Letter

Hello Dear Family and Friends,


So this week we had a very exciting thing happen. One of our investigators passed her baptismal interview!!! Her baptism will be on the 26th or the 30th. We are still trying to everything scheduled. Our ward mission leader is out of town for a month and a half for work. Anyone who has been on a mission knows how long a time that is in a missionaries time-table. (A whole transfer) He was always so helpful and he really was the only way to get in contact with the bishopric. So now we are working directly with the bishopric and they work really slow. And they always tell us they need to check with someone first and then they forget. Sigh... But its okay we will get it all worked out and our investigator will be baptized. Hooray!! Also our other investigator who had his interview like a month ago and passed, but then got a new job and went out of town is coming back. We have been in contact with him over the phone alot. He goes to church wherever he is. And we have mini lessons over the phone. He wants to get baptized already. So he is looking to get sometime off work so his parents can come visit him and he can get baptized. So maybe we will have 2 baptisms this next transfer.

Oh so this Monday begins the last week of this 2nd transfer. Can anyone believe that my 2nd transfer in the field is basically over? Crazy how time works on your mission. So much happens in a day that you can hardly believe you are still in the same week. But the weeks you don't know what happened to them. Anyway, transfer calls will be on Saturday, this Saturday. I predict that my trainer will be transfered. This is her 7th transfer here in this area. Her entire time on her mission has been spent here. She will hit a year on her mission the end of this month which is next transfer. That is a long time to be in one area. There are actually quite a lot of other Hermanas who are the same "missionary" age as my companion who have never left their first areas. So I really see a lot of changes happening this transfer. I plan on being greenie broke. But I will have news about next transfer in my next letter.

This week is temple week in the mission. So I will be at the temple this week. I am excited to feel the peace and tranquility of the temple for a bit. This last week we had a tri-mission (Houston 'my mission', Houston South, and Houston West) conference with Elder Costa. Yes, the same one who spoke in conference. He gave us some great tips on listening to the spirit. Specifically he wants us to spend less time at investigators houses and go over more frequently. That way they will feel the spirit and think about what we testified to them right before we left. So we are trying to do this more. He promised us there would be more baptisms if we did. Elder Costa is over the South West Area of the United States Missions. He is a wonderful man. What great leaders we have to guide us. I am so grateful for them. When I watched conference I watched the entire thing in Spanish. So I understood the jist of what the speakers were saying but I definitely missed a lot. I am looking forward to the Ensign probably more than the rest of you. So I can read what I missed.

I pray you are all safe and happy. I love this Gospel. I love the Lord. I am grateful for this opportunity to walk with the Savior and see what he sees. May we all better commit ourselves to share the Gospel with those around us.

Until next week,

Hermana Alaina Mills